At Automattic, we are firm believers in the power of open source: the release of code (or other works) into the public domain to be used, modified, and shared freely.
One of the challenges faced by online service providers is how to implement an effective policy for dealing with the DMCA takedown process – especially in cases where the system is being abused. We strive to protect users’ freedom of speech, and would love to see others do the same. However, the possible scenarios and requirements can be confusing; the language intimidating… especially for websites run by individuals or small organisations.
As a result, we are pleased to announce that today we are open sourcing our DMCA process docs on GitHub – under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
Included in the release is our already publicly available pages for details on how to submit a DMCA takedown and counter notice:
http://automattic.com/dmca-counter-notice/
In addition, there is also a comprehensive set of detailed ‘predefined replies’ that we use when corresponding with both users and complainants in specific situations.
Some examples are:
- Informing a user that a DMCA notice against their site has been received, the material disabled, and instructions for what to do next if they wish to challenge the removal.
- Notification to a claimant that we are rejecting their claim on fair use grounds.
- A response to an incomplete DMCA takedown, outlining which elements render the notice invalid, and instructions on how to make the necessary corrections.
We hope that this will help demystify some of the issues surrounding the DMCA process, and help others to implement their own.
The updated repo is available here, with the relevant docs filed under ‘DMCA’:
Transparency Report 